In December 1885, the Occult Magazine, the house organ of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, published an intriguing letter from a self-described Freemason and occultist attempting to explicate the myth that Hermes had buried sacred scientific writings in the pyramids of Egypt. It is an unusual combination of Masonic and Hermetic versions of the medieval pyramid myth:

There has existed from time immemorial, in the country of Mizraim, Egypt, amongst the Priests of Moph (which the Greeks call Memphis), and their successors, the tradition of a book composed of 78 movable plates, upon which its author, Hermes-Thoth, has engraved certain mysterious characters. This souvenir of Hermes lies buried in one of the Pyramids, being as mysterious as their shadow, and as mute as their granite walls. Those grand old monuments of the past leave for posterity neither name nor date of this forgotten work. Each plate of gold, comprising a leaf of this Hermetic book, contains a scale of numbers and letters in Occult relationship with man, and of the Universe of which he is a part, and constitutes an Arcanum, or Secret, designated a Key. Between every letter and number, the sacred artist has traced a combination of symbolic figures, relating to the visible and invisible things of heaven and earth. The “Ineffable Name,” or “Omnific Word,” traced by Enoch on the two deltas of purest gold, may perhaps be also found in the land of Mizraim, to which the grandson of Ham is supposed to have carried them.

The claim can be found in early form in Ammianus Marcellinus’ Roman History 22.15.30, lacking Hermes and pyramids, but it is developed most thoroughly among the Arabic language historians of the Middle Ages, following a Late Antique Hermetic tradition whereby Hermes Trismegistus built the pyramids for such a purpose. The story derives from the twin claims that Hermes recorded books of knowledge which were hidden away (Diodorus, Library 5.67; Kore Kosmou, part 1; Iambilichus, Theurgia 8.16; Syncellus, Chronicle 41; Elmacin, chapter on Alexander; etc.) and that the builder of the Great Pyramid was also the author of one such book (Syncellus, Chronicle 63), making it easy to fold the two together when Hermes became associated with Enoch and thus with the Pillars of Wisdom, identified in turn with the pyramids. But our author is here relying on a very late development of the Enochian Two Pillars story from Flavius Josephus (Antiquities 1.68-71), which Masons inherited from a corrupt version reported in Petrus Comestor’s Historia Scholastica 28 in which Tubal Cain built pillars of wisdom. It becomes overly complex to rehearse the whole history, but suffice it to say that George Oliver, writing in the Antiquities of Masonry (1823) took the Masonic tradition and fed back into it the Emerald Tablet of Hermes story from Arabian Hermeticism (in which a tablet of wisdom was found in Hermes’ tomb—a claim dating back to an eighth century text by Jabir ibn Hayyan) and, following the Arabian identification of Hermes with Enoch, made Enoch the savior of antediluvian wisdom in an underground temple. In this temple he placed a golden triangle (shades of Pythagoras) inscribed with divine characters. (Most of the texts referenced are excerpted here.) Our author has taken this a step further and prioritized the Hermetic accents on the story, but in decidedly modern form. The 78 golden plates, each with an “Arcanum,” seem to suggest the 78 cards of the modern tarot and their “arcana,” while in other respects they more closely resemble to the claims made for the Emerald Tablet. Such stories were long part of Arabian lore. Al-Maqrizi records that in Menkaure’s pyramid “they laid the bodies of priests locked in coffins of black granite, and with each priest was a book that traced the wonders of his art that he had exercised in his actions and his life, that which had been done in his time, and all that was from the beginning and will be until the end of time” (my trans.). Tales of lost books and hidden wisdom were part and parcel of medieval lore across Europe and the Near East. However, the direct origins of our author’s claim are to be found in tarot mysticism, specifically the work of Court de Gébelin and the Comte de Mellet in 1781, where the latter identified the tarot as “the science of Hermes” and implied that it was coded to a Kabbalistic interpretation of the mystical meaning of Hebrew letters. This directly inspired Jean François Alliette, writing under the name Etteilla, to imagine the tarot as a golden encyclopedia of antediluvian wisdom, as well as a system for foretelling the future. (We know this because he said so.) In Manière de se ré créer avec le Jeu de Cartes nommées Tarots(1783), he wrote of how Hermes Trismegistus (following the early Christian and medieval Arabic claim that there were three heroes named Hermes; cf. Cicero’s five Mercuries in De Natura Deorum 3.22) and sixteen other magicians worked to inscribe golden tablets at the Temple in Memphis and how these became the tarot deck, which he called the Book of Thoth, one that he was able to decode from Egyptian symbols (“hieroglyphs”—in reality mostly Hellenistic Greek symbols, though) using Kabbala.

This book was written by seventeen Magi, including the second generation descendant of Mercury-Athotis, who in turn was a grandson of Ham, and great-grandson of Noah. This was Tri-Mercury, or the third of that name, who organized the Book of Thoth, according to the knowledge and wisdom of the ancestors. This book was written in the Temple of Heat, or of Fire, which was built in a place of solitude, in the east, about three leagues from Memphis. Nothing is easier to prove than that the Mercury who produced and redacted this work is the fourth descendant of Zoroaster; the fourth folio of the Book of Thoth proves this obviously, and it relates to that which is said by Gregory of Tours, and many others. (my trans.)

Alliette provides a note that Zoroaster was actually Noah’s son Ham. If I read this correctly, then Ham (Zoroaster) had a grandson, Mercury I or II, whose own grandson was Mercury III, the author of the book. That is certainly a complex origin story. The final line refers to Gregory’s claim in History of the Franks 1.5 that Zoroaster was really Cush, son of Ham, and the inventor of fire worship and idolatry. The origin of that claim is worthy of its own blog post, convoluted as it is. I hope you will take my word for it that it derives from medieval confusion (exemplified by Vincent of Beauvais in the Speculum Maius) among various references to the origins of magic as belonging variously to Ham and Zoroaster (Augustine, City of God 21.14; Cassian, Collations 8.21; Petrus Comestor, Historia Scholastica 1.38; etc.). And thus did magical lore and Arab pyramid myths contribute to the development of modern occult tarot. Even though the “Egyptian” tarot myth exploded a few years later when hieroglyphics were deciphered, our author has nonetheless retained this bit of made up occult lore. It’s a bit interesting that our author has folded Alliette’s 78 golden plates into the tomb of Hermes Emerald Tablet story and also into the claim that the Pyramids were the tomb of Hermes to produce his Masonic-Hermetic composite claim.

The twin pillars also representing sunrise and sunset, with mid-day being of profound significance. Without mid-day Paul would not have been converted.

Heck, Royal Arch symbolism of Freemasonry parallels this.

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Duke of URL

6/12/2015 03:47:46 am

I'm not a christian, so that confuses me. Do I understand you correctly? Your sacred apostle Paul (who was actually Saul) wouldn't have followed the rabbi Yeshua /except for Noon existing/? Say what?

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Cathleen Anderson

6/11/2015 12:40:02 pm

The earliest reference to actual tarot cards I've seen is from the 1300s.

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V

6/11/2015 02:16:49 pm

I recall from my art history classes that playing cards were some of the earliest things printed in Europe.

Interestingly, according to an article I found, the Tarot cards were used early on to create a sort of narrative card game, and they're still good for that--I have two Tarot decks, both remnants of my days as a New Age-y mystic (what, I was in my early 20s) that I still use to break writer's block sometimes. They're really packed full of symbolism of all kinds that give my mind something to work with.

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David Bradbury

6/11/2015 08:28:47 pm

What's peculiar is that the "trumps" carrying the most elaborate symbolism are the only part of the tarot deck which doesn't seem to have a more ancient (Indian) origin- they don't get mentioned until the 15th century.

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V

6/12/2015 03:07:06 pm

Looking at even some of the earliest "Major Arcana" ("trump") cards, it's not all that peculiar. There are very strong artistic similarities to works that came earlier in European history--things like the various Books of Hours and some of the Bible covers drawn for particularly important patrons, and the themes and symbolism are pulled strongly pulled from fairytales and mythology of Europe.

In other words, most likely what we are seeing is an appropriation by European culture of items from Islamic and Indian culture. The cards lost their non-European meanings and assumed new ones, and were added to by Europeans. (Regardless of what some modern people think, it's not a phenomenon remotely isolated to Europe or Europeans, and it happens and has happened all throughout time, whenever two cultures interact.) Over time, it became something entirely new, and then got re-exported and had new influences brought into the art, particularly during the "Japonism" and "Spiritualist" movements, and then again during the New Age movement in the 20th century. It's actually really fascinating to trace.

The myth of an Egyptian origin is still adhered to by many enthusiasts, as well as businesses – be they selling tarot readings or tarot cards (the leaflet included in Fournier packs includes the story).

It is rather sad because real history is usually more interesting anyway, not to mention that the occult myth, that has become dominant in the modern psyche, has all but eclipsed the family of games for which the cards were invented. On the one hand I am confronted by people who won’t touch the games because they feel it is disrespectful, and on the other, by people who won’t touch the games because they have been persuaded that the cards are evil. What a mess! I have read it described as cultural vandalism and this seems quite apt.

While the 52 Islamic cards from which we derive our modern playing cards are likely to have developed from influences out of both India and China, the sequence of trumps were certainly a 15th century Italian invention. The figures were still unnamed and unnumbered after the games became popular with the illiterate classes and so had to be familiar and have a logical sequence (although this had some local variations) – something they could not do if they were esoteric. And they certainly would not have risen to such international popularity had they been offensive to the church.

If anyone is interested in reading about the history of the cards and how they came to be seen as occult objects, then here’s some reading...

The Game of Tarot
by Michael Dummett
Duckworth 1980 ISBN 0 7156 10147

This book only saw one printing and is now much in demand, sometimes fetching high prices. However, keep your eyes open and you can find a bargain. It is the most comprehensive book published about tarot, tracing the history of the games, the cards themselves, their designs, and even occult use.

These volumes serve to update and expand the work on the card games and their development given in The Game of Tarot. Although the work is limited to just this part of tarot’s history, there is no more substantial source of tarot games in the English Language – or possibly any other.

This is the first of two books to take up the task of expanding on the history of the occult tarot, which had a fairly detailed but still limited chapter in The Game of Tarot. This book limits itself to the first hundred years of occult tarot, beginning with Antoine Court de Gebelin at the end of the 18th Century. This is essential reading if you want to understand where these beliefs came from and how they developed, not to mention just why they were so very wrong. It seems to be a little harder to obtain in the US than in the UK but you shouldn’t have too much difficulty getting a copy at a reasonable price.

A History of the Occult Tarot 1870-1970
By Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett
Duckworth 2002 ISBN 0 7156 3122 5

This book picks up the story where the last one left off, showing how the occult tarot spread beyond France and throughout the English speaking world until all English speakers know by tarot was the occult and fortune telling. Once again, history is essential for understanding why we are where we are and just what went wrong. Together with the previous volume, this book pulls the rug from beneath accounts of the occult tarot leaving us with a pack of playing cards. More easily available than the previous book and you can often get if for a cheap price.

The Penguin book of Card Games
by David Parlett
Penguin 2008 ISBN-10: 0141037873 ISBN-13 978-0141037875

Previously published in 2000 as the Penguin Encyclopedia of Card Games, this is an essential book for card players and the only mainstream title that I know of to include the rules for tarot games.

The Oxford Guide to Card Games
by David Parlett Oxford University Press 1990 ISBN 0-19-214165-1

Not a guide to how games are played as such but rather a general history of our regular playing cards from their origin to the development of various families of games played with them - including tarot. A fascinating, informative, and enjoyable book. If you want to understand tarot cards and the games played with them in the broader context of card gaming, then this is an essential book.

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